[MYSA Coaches] A few end of season reminders and thanks

Wed May 2 00:01:19 EDT 2007

Mike,

Because I cannot keep my mouth shut, I just have to throw something out 
there for a litmus test.

First, I think the ranking idea is awesome. Kudos to you and the other 
officers for putting this into place. I recognize it will not be perfect but 
it will help the leagues to achieve some measure of parity.

I want to broach a subject that is bound to cause you and the other officers 
some headaches. Gender disparity. I have kept rather detailed stats on my 
U10 team this year (Panthers). I have stats on each player for shots, goals, 
assists, quality passes, goals allowed, saves, etc. I did this solely to 
support splitting the leagues. While one precocious, aggressive young lady 
did her best to mess up my efforts, to me, the stats are alarming. They are 
listed below.

     Shots Goals Assists Quality Passes Goals Allowed Saves Take-aways 
Defenses

      Totals 116 40 11 22  14 29 1 9

      Female 29 10 4 8  9 15 1 3
      Male 87 30 7 14  5 14 0 6

You can see a 3:1 ratio on shots and goals. I have 5 girls and 6 boys on my 
team. You can ask any of my parents, I did my level best to make sure each 
child had the same amount of time at *every* position. I took great pains to 
ensure this.

I looked at the registration early in the year. In U10, we had 41 female 
registrants. This is enough to have a girl's league. Of course the parents 
should be given the option but when asked, my daughter really liked the 
idea. In U8, there are even more girls. For U6 and below, there really is no 
difference in the sexes. I recognize that based on numbers today, U12 would 
not be able to support this but I think U10 and U8 can. I hope the league 
considers moving in this direction.

While I am on my soapbox coaches, here are two more things the Panthers 
tried this spring. I have been a yeller' from the sidelines since my son 
started MYSA some 3-4 years ago. This spring as a coach, I decided to not 
give my team gametime direction from the sideline. I also informed my 
parents to not direct the kids from the sideline AND I told the kids to 
ignore both their coach and parents. It has worked out great. We cheer, 
which is fun but we don't tell the kids what to do. It took some getting 
used to but the kids have responded well. They are now thinking on their 
own. Alas, it did not work so well for U6. Anyway, I encourage all coaches 
to experiment with this approach. When I asked my kids, they said all the 
yelling just confused them anyway!

The other experiment was to play every player at every position. Every 
position. I am proud to say that each child on the Panthers played at least 
one half in the goal. Everyone. No exceptions. Certainly not all the 
children are cut out to be goalies but I wonder, "how can a child know what 
they like if they never get to opportunity". I found goalies I never knew I 
had. We as parents/coaches must encourage out children to try new things. It 
breaks my heart to see a youngster of 7-8 get "stuck" on defense because 
that's all anyone thinks they can play. Let the kids try all different 
stuff. MAKE the kids try all different stuff. They will surprise you.

Anyway, stuff to think about.

David Sips
(919) 812-3873

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Baptiste" <president at mebanesoccer.us>
To: "MYSA Coaches" <coaches at mebanesoccer.us>
Cc: "MYSA Officers" <officers at mebanesoccer.us>
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 10:46 AM
Subject: [MYSA Coaches] A few end of season reminders and thanks

> Coaches/Managers,
>
> As the season winds down, I wanted to thank all of you for the time and
> effort you put into this past year of soccer. At the recreational level,
> 856 different area children played on 65 teams in over 530 matches. Add
> to that almost 100 players who participated in our new Challenge
> program, and this has been a very successful year for the MYSA. We
> couldn't do it without all of you.
>
> If you know you won't be returning to the league as a coach next year,
> please try to return any coaching equipment to the concession stand
> (first aid kit, stopwatch, cones, etc - you can keep the whistle ;) )
> This will help reduce our costs in the fall. If you aren't sure - no
> worries - hang on to it until you're sure. Whenever you decide.
>
> We hope you'll continue coaching/managing in the MYSA. If you're looking
> to become a better coach, we strongly encourage you to take a coaching
> class. Summer dates will continue to be added, so check the schedule
> often. Youth Modules and E Licenses can be obtained in a single weekend.
> If you are unsure what would be best for you to take first, contact our
> Director of Coaching, Tara Raggett (tararaggett at bellsouth.net), who will
> be happy to give you some pointers. The MYSA is proud to have 25
> certified coaches and we'd like to double that number in the next few
> years.
>
> You can get plenty of additional information and class schedules at:
> http://ncsoccer.org/Education/education%20home.shtml
>
> Challenge tryouts are coming up in a few weeks. We'll be sending out a
> lot of additional information this week related to that so stay tuned.
> We're going to encourage a LOT of players to come out as we found many
> players did not come out last year because they thought they "weren't
> good enough", when they definitely were.
>
> We are working on a 'Coaches Handbook' which will contain a lot of
> information related to coaching youth soccer in general and in the MYSA.
> We hope to include common procedures, ideas for running a team, common
> answers to common questions, and more. Once we have a VERY rough
> draft/outline ready, we'll be sending it out to coaches for feedback and
> contributions - please contribute if you can - it will only help our
> coaches in the future.
>
> One thing the MYSA has always tried to do is respond to problems we
> encounter and improve our league each year. The league officers have
> been having wide ranging discussions about the previous year and how we
> might improve things next year. We value your feedback and if you have
> ideas for how to improve things going forward - by all means let me know.
>
> One area we're trying to improve is team parity. Some divisions are now
> approaching 200 players and it is impossible for a division coordinator
> to know them all. Because of this, a team may be formed with a large
> number of advanced players because they coordinator didn't know them.
> The only hard information they have is gender and age and to a lesser
> extent, experience.
>
> To help with this in the future, we've decided to implement a player
> rating system. We are asking each coach to rank their players on a scale
> of 1 to 4 (Advanced, Intermediate, Developing, Beginner) after each
> Spring season. These ratings are meant to give division coordinators
> some additional help when assigning teams in the Fall. The ratings can
> only be seen by the division coordinators. If you wish to share them
> with your parents, that is up to you.
>
> The ratings are fairly simple. When evaluating your team, try to rate
> them in comparison to the rest of the division they are in, not just
> compared to their teammates. Also, in two year divisions (U8, U10, U12,
> etc) you should rate everyone together - ie an advanced U9 player should
> be just as good as an advanced U10 player, not just 'advanced for a U9'
> We'll take that into account when assigning. So treat the players on
> your team all as equal peers, regardless of age. Don't rate on a bell
> curve. You may have no 'advanced' players or you may have many. Be
> honest. This isn't meant as any type of team metric.
>
> Here is a brief legend:
>
> Advanced - Shows skill beyond their age and can do things beyond the
> core competencies. Probably could play at a higher level.
> Intermediate - Is a solid player that has mastered most core
> competencies for their age group, but still must work on consistency,
> using their weak foot, etc.
> Developing - A player who is still working to master some of the core
> competencies for their age group, but is beyond a beginner level.
> Beginner - Often players who have not played soccer recently and are
> working to learn the core competencies. While they may have made
> improvements in the past season/year, they still have a limited 'core'
> of skills for their age group.
>
> One note - it is easy to confuse speed and aggression for skill. Try to
> rate your players based on their soccer skill. A player who can dribble
> reliably with both feet and pass well would likely rate higher than,
> say, a player who is very fast, can 'chase dribble' a break away/score,
> but can't control the ball and evade when challenged. Stuff like that.
>
> Again - this isn't a huge thing - so don't worry if you aren't sure if
> player X is this rating or that. Just go with your best assessment. All
> this does is give us an additional bit of data about a player when we go
> to assign players next season and try to ensure the teams, when assigned
> at least, are as equitable as possible. It may also help us better
> 'split' large divisions into Blue/White if we can't balance a division
> via normal roster assignments.
>
> Adding ratings is easy. Simply login to the coaches tools and select
> 'Player Records' - it's the rightmost column. While you're there - add
> any missing uniform numbers - that will help their team managers next
> year! You can change ratings once they are submitted. However, please
> try to do this soon as you will lose access to your Spring teams
> sometime around early June.
>
> Let me know if you have any questions and thanks again for your time and
> tireless efforts!
>
> Mike Baptiste
> MYSA
>
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